List of cities by time of continuous habitation

This is a list of present-day cities by the time period over which they have been continuously inhabited.

The age claims listed are generally disputed and may indeed be obsolete. Differences in opinion can result from different definitions of "city" as well as "continuously inhabited" and historical evidence is often disputed.

Several cities listed here (Balkh, Byblos, Aleppo, Damascus, and Jericho) each popularly claim to be "the oldest city in the world". Caveats to the validity of each claim are discussed in the "Notes" column.

Referred to as Aromata promontorium by the Ancient Greeks, Guardafui was described as early as the 1st century AD in the Periplus of the Erythraean Sea, along with other flourishing commercial settlements on the northern Somali littoral.[4]

Followed by Jersey City, New Jersey (Communipaw) in 1617 and New York City (as New Amsterdam) in 1624 or 1625. (Note: While there was an abandonment in 1617 or 1618 of the Albany settlement, it was re-established within a few years; also, the Jersey City settlement was a factorij or trading post in the 1610s and didn't become a "homestead" (bouwerij) until the 1630s. Settlements in New Netherlands sometimes moved around in the early years.)

America, South

A network of settlements continuously inhabited since the late 1st millennium AD. A highly urbanized Kuikuro settlement was home to upwards of 10,000 people in the densely forested Upper Xingu. Their numbers declined sharply after contacts with Europeans in the 16th century.

The Killke occupied the region from 900 to 1200, prior to the arrival of the Incas in the 13th century. Carbon-14 dating of Saksaywaman, the walled complex outside Cusco, has demonstrated that the Killke culture constructed the fortress about 1100.[15]

There are accounts of Megasthenes (c. 350 – 290 BC) a Greek ethnographer in the Hellenistic period, author of the work Indica, having visited Madurai (then, a bustling city and capital of Pandya Kingdom). Mahavamsa, the Sri Lankan chronicle mentions that King Vijaya married a princess from Madurai, and his period is mentioned to be around 543 BC.

Along with changes in name, it is essentially a union of the two capitals of Panjalu Kingdom and Janggala Kingdom. The settlements are always interspersed along both banks of Brantas River. Administratively, the Government of Indonesia divides Kediri into two political entities, Kediri Regency and the Town of Kediri which is located in the middle of the regency. Nevertheless, archaeological remains exist beyond administrative boundaries and settlements often spread disregarding administrative boundaries between both entities.

The Citadel of Arbil is a fortified settlement in Erbil, Iraqi Kurdistan. The city corresponds to ancient Arbela. Settlement at Erbil (kurdish: Hewlêr) can be dated back to at least 6000 BC, but not urban life until c. 2300. It is one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities in the world.

Settled from the Neolithic (carbon-dating tests have set the age of earliest settlement around 7000[42]), a city since the 3rd millennium BC.[40] Byblos had a reputation as the "oldest city in the world" in Antiquity (according to Philo of Byblos).

Evidence of habitation at the current site of Aleppo dates to about c. 8,000 years ago, although excavations at Tell Qaramel, 25 kilometers north of the city show the area was inhabited about 13,000 years ago,[44] the Temple of Hadad inside the Citadel date to c. 2400 BC.[45]

Damascus is often claimed to be the oldest continuously inhabited city in the world, and evidence exists of a settlement in the wider Barada basin dating back to 9000 BC. However, within the area of Damascus, there is no evidence for large-scale settlement until the 2nd millennium BC.[46]

Archaeological excavations indicate that the site has been inhabited since at least 5000 BC.[47] The emergence of acropolis in Susa is determined by C14 dating from 4395-3955 BC,[48] roughly dated about 4200 BC as time of foundation.[49] Susa was a large city during Ancient and Medieval periods, but marginalized in 13th century[47] due to Mongol invasion. The city further degraded from 15th century when a majority of its population moved to Dezful and it remained as a small settlement until the 20th century.[50]

Although most modern scholars place the Classical Antiochia ad Taurum at Gaziantep, some maintain that it was located at Aleppo. Furthermore, that the two cities occupy the same site is far from established fact.[53] Assuming this to be the case, the founding date of the present site would be about 1000 BC.[54]

Traces of habitation from 9000 BC.[55][56] Fortifications date to 6800 BC (or earlier), making Jericho the earliest known walled city.[57]

Archaeological evidence indicates that the city was destroyed and abandoned several times (sometimes remaining uninhabited for hundreds of years at a time), with later rebuilding and expansion.[58][59]

A settlement at the site goes back to the 3rd millennium BC. Rey (also Ray or Rayy) is mentioned in the Avesta (an important text of prayers in Zoroastrianism) as a sacred place, and it is also featured in the book of Tobit.[60]

Jenin's history goes back to 2450 BC, when it was built by the Canaanites. After 1244, Jenin flourished economically because of its location on the trade route, until a major earthquake completely destroyed the city.[65]

Nablus is a Canaanite city. It was inhabited since the 4th millennium BC. In 724 BC it has been ruined by Assyria and after revival in the 3rd and 2nd centuries, it has been finally destroyed by the Hasmonean Hyrcanus in 128 BC. 200 years later the new Roman city was founded next to the ruined settlement.[72]

Amman has been inhabited by several civilizations. The first civilization on record is during the Neolithic period, around 7500 BC, when archaeological discoveries in 'Ain Ghazal. It was then destroyed by several earthquakes and natural disasters in the Middle Ages, and remained a small village and a pile of ruins for about 500 years, until the Circassian settlement in 1878.[73]

Founded as Aia. Archeological evidence indicates that the city functioned as the capital of the kingdom of Colchis as early as the 2nd millennium BC. It is widely believed by historians that when Apollonius Rhodius was writing about Jason and the Argonauts and their legendary journey to Colchis, Kutaisi/Aia was the final destination of the Argonauts and the residence of King Aeëtes.

Remains of towns at this location have been dated to earlier than the year 1000 BC, and Mtskheta was capital of the early Georgian Kingdom of Iberia during the 3rd century BC – 5th century AD. It was the site of early Christian activity, and the location where Christianity was proclaimed the state religion of Georgia in 337.

Continuous habitation since approximately 1500 BC, as we have notice about the Ausonian-Italic pre-Greek settlement and about the sculptor Léarchos of Reggio (early 15th century BC)[92] and King Iokastos (late 13th century BC).[92]

A colony of the Greek city of Phocaea. Present Sant Martí is on the ancient Palaiopolis of Emporion, in an island next to the coast; in 550 BC, the inhabitants moved to the mainland, creating the Neapolis: Palaiapolis remained as a small neighbourhood.

The exactly origin of the city is unknown, but there are remains of a Greek colony from the 4th century BC, although some historians consider the foundation earlier, at the 8th century BC. However, permanent human presence has been established in the site since 3000 BC as evidenced by the different megalithic monuments surrounding the city.

Unknown origin. Several neolithics tombs (5000-4500 BC) and remains from the Iberian period have been found, as well as several drachma coins inscribed with the word "Barkeno". There is also a hypothesis about a small Greek settlement called Kallípolis to have existed in the area. However, the first archaeological remains of buildings are from the Roman period.

Ptuj is the oldest city in Slovenia. There is evidence that the area was settled in the Stone Age. In the Late Iron Age it was settled by Celts. By the 1st century BC, the settlement was controlled by Ancient Rome.

Archaeological evidence indicates human habitation as early as 4200 BC.[104] During the Gallic Wars, Caesar's armies set fire to Lutetia "a town of the Parisii, situated on an island on the river Seine."[105] While only a garrison at best on the Île de la Cité during some periods after 1st and 2nd century, was renamed Paris in 360 AD[106][107]

According to the widely accepted legend the city was founded by King Vakhtang I Gorgasali of Georgia. New archaeological studies of the region have revealed that the territory of Tbilisi was settled by humans as early as the 4th millennium BC. The earliest actual (recorded) accounts of settlement of the location come from the 4th century, when a fortress was built during King Varaz-Bakur's reign.

Edinburgh is mention as a settlement in the poem Y Gododdin, traditionally dated to the around the late 6th and early 7th century.[114] The Poem uses The Brythonic name Din Eidyn (Fort of Eidyn) for Edinburgh and describes it as the capital of Gododdin. It is not until around 638 that the city starts being referred to as Edin-burh or Edinburgh, after the city was conquered by the Angles of Bernicia[115]

Dublin was founded as a city by the Vikings in the 9th century, but there were two older Irish settlements which existed on the same spot several centuries before they arrived; Áth Cliath ("ford of hurdles") and Duiblinn ("Black Pool").

^Santa Fe, New Mexico, which is sometimes cited for this, was abandoned due to Indian raiding from 1680 to 1692, and its inhabitants did not succeed in living in the area continuously until after 1692.

^Founded during the reign of King Pontarika, per Charles James Forbes Smith-Forbes (1882). Legendary History of Burma and Arakan. The Government Press. p. 20.; the king's reign was 1028 to 1043 per Harvey, G. E. (1925). History of Burma: From the Earliest Times to 10 March 1824. London: Frank Cass & Co. Ltd. p. 368.

^Gates, Charles (2003). "Near Eastern, Egyptian, and Aegean Cities". Ancient Cities: The Archaeology of Urban Life in the Ancient Near East and Egypt, Greece and Rome. Routledge. p. 18. ISBN0-415-01895-1. Jericho, in the Jordan River Valley in Israel, inhabited from ca. 9000 BC to the present day, offers important evidence for the earliest permanent settlements in the Near East.

^Martell, Hazel Mary (2001). "The Fertile Crescent". The Kingfisher Book of the Ancient World: From the Ice Age to the Fall of Rome. Kingfisher Publications. p. 18. ISBN0-7534-5397-5. People first settled there from around 9000 B.C., and by 8000 B.C., the community was organized enough to build a stone wall to defend the city.

^Ryan, Donald P. (1999). "Digging up the Bible". The Complete Idiot's Guide to Lost Civilizations. Alpha Books. p. 137. ISBN0-02-862954-X. The city was walled during much of its history and the evidence indicates that it was abandoned several times, and later expanded and rebuilt several times.

^Kenneth Kitchen, "On the Reliability of the Old Testament" (Eerdmans 2003), pp.187

^An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis: An Investigation Conducted by The Copenhagen Polis Centre for the Danish National Research Foundation by Mogens Herman Hansen, 2005, page 330,"Epidamnos was founded in either 627 or 625 (Hieron. Chron"

^An Inventory of Archaic and Classical Poleis: An Investigation Conducted by The Copenhagen Polis Centre for the Danish National Research Foundation by Mogens Herman Hansen,2005,page 936,

^The Cambridge Ancient History, Volume 3, Part 2: The Assyrian and Babylonian Empires and Other States of the Near East, from the Eighth to the Sixth Centuries BC by John Boardman, I. E. S. Edwards, E. Sollberger, and N. G. L. Hammond, ISBN 0-521-22717-8, 1992, page 600: "In the place of the vanished Treres and Tilataei we find the Serdi for whom there is no evidence before the first century BC. It has for long being supposed on convincing linguistic and archeological grounds that this tribe was of Celtic origin."

^Women and slaves in Greco-Roman culture: differential equations by Sandra Rae Joshel, Sheila Murnaghan,1998,page 214,"Philip II founded cities at Beroe, Kabyle, and Philippopolis in 342/1, and Aegean-style urban life began to penetrate Thrace."

^Late Roman villas in the Danube-Balkan region by Lynda Mulvin,2002,page 19,"Other roads went through Beroe (founded by Philip II of Macedon)",

^Philip of Macedon by Louïza D. Loukopoulou,1980,page 98, "Upriver in the valley between the Rhodope and Haimos Philip founded Beroe (Stara Zagora) and Philippolis (Plovdiv)."

^The cities in Thrace and Dacia in late antiquity: (studies and materials) by Velizar Iv Velkov,1977,page 128, "Founded by Philipp 11 on the site of an old Thracian settlement, it has existed without interruption from that time."

^Epirus: the geography, the ancient remains, the history and topography of ... by Nicholas Geoffrey Lemprière Hammond,"founded Antipatreia in Illyria at c. 314 BC"